Manchester Beach / Mendocino Coast KOA

This is a nice campground, there are plenty of activities if you want to stay busy. Swimming pool, hot tub, ice cream socials, karaōke, frisbee golf, and many other organized activities are available if you’re interested.
The nice thing about this place though in my opinion, is that even with all the activity available the layout and size of the place allows you to still feel like you got away from it all. Location is great, walking distance to Manchester beach, short drive to Mendocino and Fort Bragg.
I have stayed here several times over the years and plan to continue staying here anytime visiting the area with my travel trailer.

Staff was very friendly and when inquiring if there were vegetarian choices the breakfast cook ordered some sausage special for me and served them. Also Yolanda is always knowledgeable and helpful as we have visited there before.

This place has definitely been the heart of some of my fondest childhood memories. I still make it a point to return as much as possible because I absolutely love it! Great little town, cute cabins, and and overall really enjoyable KOA campground! Can’t wait to go in a couple weeks for a weekend getaway !

The camp grounds are clean; the reason for the second star. But, don’t plan on swimming here. I hate places that offer/​advertise a pool and they don’t care for it and the water is freezing. I wanted to take my boys (5 & 6) swimming with their friends and spend a day next to the pool. The water was freezing and including myself we could only tolerate swimming for 5 minutes. Then the boys begged to go in the hot tub, but they strongly enforce that the hot tub is for adults only. I can appreciate the rule about adults only, but the adults can’t enjoy it when the kids and/​or adults can’t even tolerate the freezing pool. I just wanted to leave this review if you plan on relaxing at the pool.

I can’t wait to stay here again next year!!! The experience was so amazing! I was hesitant because my camp site was the only tent site at the end of a ton of RV spots, but it worked out in our favor. The staff assured me that it was a great spot and they were so right! The walk to the beach was a little long, but I love hiking so it was all good.
The whole site was so clean! There was an ice cream social and a community camp fire. I especially loved the community kitchen, even tho we didn’t need it. We had so much fun on our stay it was so sad to leave.

The good:
Great service, clean facilities, lots of weekend activities, about a half mile from the beach. I’ve stayed here at least 15 times over the last 25 years. They have ping-​pong, pool, hot tub, outdoor movies on occasion, jungle gym, volleyball court, unique bikes to rent, and I’m probably missing some stuff. The basic camping cabins are affordable, have electricity, small table, camp fire pit, heating and a bonus tent site at each one. The luxury cabins are pretty darn snazzy! Dog and kid friendly place. The beds come with minimal cushions which aren’t the best or worst, bring your own bedding. Weekends get booked up fast in the summer, so plan ahead.
The bad:
The playground is slightly dangerous, no rubber padding or wood chips to break the fall. My niece fell over 6 feet from the twirly gig and fractured her back in multiple areas. She had to be taken by two different ambulances to get to a helicopter and then she was taken to Oakland Children’s hospital.
Tips:
Don’t go Mountain View Rd unless you have a death wish or you hate your passengers. The road gets very narrow, has tons of pot holes and is on edge of a mountain cliff. I’ve taken this road several times and highly regretted each time. Take the 101 to the 128 West and thank me later. The road is much straighter so the extra miles are made up by additional speed. I get firewood down the street after unloading my car, there is a big sign less than 1 mile from camp on hwy 1. Rollerville Café in Point Arena has great food.

We stayed here for one night on a gift certificate we won at a silent auction. First of all, thank you Manchester KOA for donating a gift certificate to help support a local organization. You are awesome! Staff was super friendly on check in and when ever we saw them around the facilities.
We stayed in one of the Kamping Kabin. It was clean and tidy. Bathrooms were up by the main office, a short walk away. The bathrooms were super clean with good water pressure and lots of hot water. If you want to camp but don’t want to «rough it» this is a great spot. We were there in the off season so there was nobody near us. If it was full, I think it would be a little loud and you might feel like you’ve got people right on you, as the Kamping Kabins are a little close.

We stayed here last weekend in the small cabins and loved it. There are small heaters in them that kept it warm enough to be comfortable all night, for us and our toddler. The store is well stocked and they deliver the firewood directly to your fire pit! I will most definitely be staying here again. Also, the staff were responsive and very friendly.

I camped here with a group of friends. I would like to start by saying I had a great time I enjoyed all the fun stuff. The pool, hot tub, clean bathroom and such. BUT I do have a problem with some of the KOA staff drinking & driving around the campground. And 1 girl in a cart did not have time for me or even a smile. All and all we had a good time but don’t think I would bring my kids here with this staff!!!
Thanks KOA John we loved Fort Bragg!

Manchester KOA is one of the best KOA campgrounds in California. The staff is always friendly on and off season. The grounds are always spotless and well groomed. They offer everything from tent camping to super deluxe camping cabins.
They sit just off shore of Manchester State Park which is a preserve for snowy plover and coastal beaver which are both endangered. There are all kinds of animals through the area and many things to see and do including Fort Ross which is a historical Russian fort.
Drive up into Fort Bragg to visit the Skunk Line train, Glass Beach, and take a crabbing or fishing charter out of the harbor.

Friendly staff, great facilities and a hot tub! What more could you ask for? The property isn’t spectacular but the accommodations make up for it.

I rented a «Loft lodge 2» for myself and my 2 sisters, brother, and their kids a few months ago. We all crammed in here pretty nicely for the weekend! I don’t think we would have found anywhere else for a better price for the area to fit all 7 of us. We would have had to rent several rooms in a regular hotel & then spend more eating out with no kitchen.
Lodge is very clean, nice & homey. The kitchen is supplied with most everything you could need to cook. There is no stove top or oven, but a «hot plate» type burner. There’s a toaster & microwave and full fridge. Large gas grill is right out front. Paper towels & toilet paper were supplied.
The beds are ok/​pretty comfy, although a little «creeky». The loft upstairs has mats, no beds. My brother slept up there with his two kids and just brought an air mattress. it was fine.
There are no linens. We all just threw out sleeping bags on the beds.
It’s nice to have a fire pit out front.
The area is GORGEOUS. There’s a nice trail to the beach. Beach access is pretty steep. There are lots of recreation activities for the kids. We really enjoyed our time here.

Great KOA! Frisbee golf, hot tub and a short walk to the beach. Very much enjoyed our stay and will be back. Clean, friendly and great staff.

So glad we came across this campground! It had been years since we stayed at a KOA. We left other camps disappointed & happened upon this one. There were 5 of us & we were shown both sizes of cabins. We chose the smaller since our son still wanted to stay in his tent :). There was a full size futon bed on the living room for my husband & I & our twin girls loved the bunk beds. Everything was very clean & well stocked. The group campfire was great & we shared stories with new friends. The ice cream was of course a big hit! Loved the ice cream cone hat Watching a movie under the stars was a nice way to end the nights. Ping pong, pool & swimming kept our kids busy. The bikes are a cute touch. Everyone was more than friendly & we all agreed we would come back again! Don’t miss the lighthouse tour! Gorgeous Thanks for a very memorable week!

This location is good. It’s fairly close to the ocean and other attractions (Mendocino, Fort Bragg, etc.). The sites are roomy, but there are some serious issues. First of all, the staff is inexperienced and not very knowledgeable. However, the biggest problem is that they do not enforce their own rules! Kids were running wild when we first arrived despite the fact that the rules require them to be supervised by their parents. This was standard protocol. I never saw the KOA personnel make any effort to control the situation. Equally as frustrating was the fact that they did not enforce quiet time between 10PM and 8AM. There were several jerks who made the quiet time hours anything but QUIET TIME. Coincidentally, these were the same families who had the out-​of-​control kids. Rude parents raise rude kids. And yes, I did notify the staff and provided the offending site number (to no avail). Just a little courtesy on the part of other campers, and enforcement of the rules by the staff would have made this a much more pleasant stay.
Bottom line. If you are loud and obnoxious, let you kids run wild and have no consideration for others you will probably do fine here. If not, stay at the State Park just down Kinney Road.

I haven’t been to a KOA in over 15 years and I’m glad we came to this one recently. We had a state park campsite reserved and found out the night before we left to go camping that it was closed due to the CA drought so I scrambled to find another place on short notice. That’s how we ended up driving up north to this place. it was AWESOME!
We car camped and since we were a couple of adults, they asked if we wanted to be a littler further out from the center of the place and we were thankful for that. We stayed in space T-​70, one of the ones closest to the beach access trail. It was a little windier and cold out there but we didn’t mind. It was only a 2 minute walk to the restroom and main area, so you weren’t that far out.
We had a great experience. The campsite itself was huge. We were able to easily fit 2 cars and 2 tents with no problem. KOA security isn’t a joke, they came around a couple times at night time to make their rounds. The staff were all really friendly and helpful. One night there were some fireworks in the distance and within a minute, KOA security came up in a golf cart asking us if we had heard the noise they had been asked to check on. The place is totally safe and secure.
They do a lot of activities on the grounds which was cool, too. They had ice cream socials where each huge scoop if ice cream is only $ 1.50 (Breyer’s brand, yum!) and the proceeds go towards the KOA kids charity. There was wine tasting another afternoon and then a Father’s Day all you can eat pancake breakfast for $ 8 per adult.
Whenever we had a question for the store/​front desk staff, they were always friendly, helpful, and got us what we needed. They told us about a non-​sand hike along the beach called Stonetta which was near the lighthouse 4 miles south of the KOA. We bought some wood for $ 7 at the store and were prepared to lug it back to our campsite but they said they would deliver it and it showed up less than 10 minutes later.
There was a fish cleaning area where people would clean their fish or abalones from the day’s catch. A playground and these bike thing you could rent which we always saw a kid using.
The facilities were amazing and clean. There’s an open gazebo area where you can cook your food on stoves. It was crowded around 7pm but other than that, you have the place all to yourselves pretty much. They are constantly cleaning the restrooms — toilets, sinks, and shower stalls multiple times a day so it was really clean.
Staying here was a little more than what I would have paid at the state park campground but I didn’t know because I knew they wouldn’t be closed due to a drought, I wouldn’t have to pay 50 cents for 2 minutes of hot water, they wouldn’t have ice cream socials, so we all really enjoyed our stay here. And would definitely come back soon!

The staff was HORRIBLE.
We made reservations online for my family, a party of six. When we arrived, the larger, deluxe loft cabin we reserved, paid for and had a confirmation number for was given to another party. We were placed in a smaller Deluxe Cabin for four days.
The cabin was cute and the bathroom came with ONE roll of toilet paper (in the holder)… for six people, for four days and nights.
After the first day we ran out of toilet paper.
I went to the front desk and the clerk WOULD NOT GIVE US MORE TOILET PAPER???
This KOA is cheap and the staff is so RUDE!!! The clerk embarrassed me in front of a lobby full of people. She finally promised to bring a roll to the cabin, which she never did. The next day we asked for more toilet paper and again, they wouldn’t give us any.
Not such a big deal, right? It’s just a roll of toilet paper. Well, when you’re camping in a $ 200+ per night Deluxe Cabin with six people, I’d expect to be treated better.
Manchester KOA will not honor reservations made online, so beware! I had proof of a printed online reservation for our stay in a larger cabin with a loft for the kids, however it didn’t make any difference… they placed us in a smaller Deluxe cabin, but for the same price as the larger cabin… not right!
Manchester KOA will not give you additional rolls of toilet paper, so be sure to stock up ahead of time! The grounds are clean and nice, but as far as returning to this KOA, I’m positive we won’t be going back,
Manchester Beach KOA Kamprgound is jjust a Crappy Place to Stay, and it stinks because they won’t provide anything to WIPE IT OFF WITH! Pun very intended!

My husband and I love this place! It is perfect for the kids and has a lot of things for them to do while you can enjoy your stay! The beach is only a 1 min drive away and you can hear the waves at night breaking against the shore! We did the buy two nights get one free for Easter. So it was only $ 52 a night! What a great deal! There doing the same deal for Father’s Day so I think I know where we might be going:)
Also check out glass beach while your here, the place is amazing!

This place is awesome!!! Wonderful staff! Clean and neat cabins. We really enjoyed our weekend here

We visited for the first time in May 2012 and already have our next trip booked there for June 2012. This was also our first time at a KOA campground too. I am not a «camping» person so we rented a 1 room cabin for my husband and I and our 2 boys.
Upon our arrival at 8:30pm, I was pleased with the super quick check in. I was even more pleased with the cleanliness of the grounds. Our cabin was perfect and really roomy for only being a 1 room cabin. There was a lot of space for all of our stuff and the cabin was nice and warm when we arrived. The community bathroom was very clean and private. The shower had limestone style tiles.
The walk to the beach was a bit long with 2 kids so I think we’ll ride our bikes next time. We loved the place so much that we purchased the KOA Rewards card so we can get a discount when we book.
Overall, I’m totally impressed and plan on visiting other KOA’s as well. Looking forward to our abalone diving trip in 2 weeks.